FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022
Washington, D.C. (February 24, 2022) – The American Academy of Family Physicians is deeply concerned by the growing trend of recent legal opinions and legislative efforts to restrict the delivery of care to specific patient populations. The AAFP strongly opposes any such effort to criminalize or penalize physicians for providing comprehensive care for their patients.
The AAFP has long supported access to care for all patient groups, including access to gender-affirming care. Government should not create barriers to health care, encourage overt discrimination, unfairly limit health insurance coverage or interfere in the physician-patient relationship.
Physicians must be able to practice medicine that is informed by their years of medical education, training, experience, and the available evidence, freely and without threat of punishment. Ultimately, patients and their physicians, not policymakers, should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them.
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About American Academy of Family Physicians
Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents 130,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. It is the largest medical society devoted solely to primary care. Family physicians conduct approximately one in five office visits — that’s 192 million visits annually or 48 percent more than the next most visited medical specialty. Today, family physicians provide more care for America’s underserved and rural populations than any other medical specialty. Family medicine’s cornerstone is an ongoing, personal patient-physician relationship focused on integrated care. To learn more about the specialty of family medicine and the AAFP's positions on issues and clinical care, visit www.aafp.org. For information about health care, health conditions and wellness, please visit the AAFP’s consumer website, www.familydoctor.org.